Covid 19 -

[Romulus]

Originally Posted by PhilT2

Sweden has approx the same population but had 88,000 cases and 5,865 deaths. I guess lockdowns work. Greece has a large Syrian refugee population so I wonder are they counting deaths among them, if there are any.

Is there a refusal to acknowledge HCQ as a treatment like the Australian government has? Lets stick to Greece for the moment.

[Tassie f100]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

If people have no symptoms, then why would they get tested? Must be a heap of cases of people who are unaware they have even had it.

Why do people get flu shots when they don’t have the flu????

[AlanD]

Originally Posted by Tassie f100

Why do people get flu shots when they don’t have the flu????

Can we try to avoid confusing a viral test (to determine if you have been infected) with viral inoculation ( which hopefully "tricks" the immune system into producing appropriate antibodies against the virus) that "should" assist with giving the individual a head start with defeating an infection.

'flu shots are "usually' a cocktail of inoculations designed to help fight off whichever 'flu virus strains are known to be currently circulating among the world's populations. According to our GP our 'flu shot this year combated against 5 strains of the 'flu and usually was only given to older people - other age groups got inoculated against fewer strains I was informed.

Since I'm here, can posters avoid posts that have little or nothing to do with Covid 19? I'm getting tired of reading a lot of rubbish.

Cheers

[buggerlugs]

Originally Posted by AlanD

Can we try to avoid confusing a viral test (to determine if you have been infected) with viral inoculation ( which hopefully "tricks" the immune system into producing appropriate antibodies against the virus) that "should" assist with giving the individual a head start with defeating an infection.

'flu shots are "usually' a cocktail of inoculations designed to help fight off whichever 'flu virus strains are known to be currently circulating among the world's populations. According to our GP our 'flu shot this year combated against 5 strains of the 'flu and usually was only given to older people - other age groups got inoculated against fewer strains I was informed.

Since I'm here, can posters avoid posts that have little or nothing to do with Covid 19? I'm getting tired of reading a lot of rubbish.

Cheers

If your getting tired of reading a lot of rubbish and hoping that things might improve, you may want to leave this thread..............

[Tickford.]

Originally Posted by Tickford.

Got a work colleague who is a avid cyclist. Cycles 13km's each way to and from work everyday (that's nothing to him). The bloke is very fit and looks after his health, and his diet as if he is a pro athlete.

He tested positive to COVID-19 on 14th July. Only symptom was a temperature. He was back at work this week after being cleared by NHHS, and I had a chat to him yesterday about how he's doing. He said COVID has definitely effected his fitness. He is more out of breath when he rides to work, and when riding back home. Heart and breathing rate is up there he reckons. He kept up his fitness by cycling while in iso as he has a machine at home, so lack of exercise was not the issue.

I was very surprised to hear this. This guy is one of the fittest people I know. If someone like him can be effected in such a way, then the average person (me) maybe in serious trouble. I haven't even been on a cycle for some 15+ years!!

Your average person who has recovered from COVID may not actually know if, or how much, their health has been effected because they may not be exercise/fitness junkies like the bloke above. And got nothing to compare their pre and post COVID health status.

He maybe able to recover his pre COVID fitness level but it will take a lot of work he thinks. Bloke was one of those sceptics of COVID, is also a vegetarian, and one of those climate change people. Yeah, I know. He's view of COVID is very different now. But unfortunately his view on vegetarian and climate change hasn't changed so I will continue to distance myself from him at work. ()

Thought I'd post a little update on this bloke. Just over 2 months now since he tested positive. I had a chat with him today at work. He told me his fitness has not improved, not even the slightest. He still cycles to work everyday, but is really feeling it. Out of breath and pulse rate up there after each ride. He has recently volunteered for medical research being undertaken for people who have overcome COVID, but have long lasting symptoms. As per my post above, this bloke is a fitness fanatic, and he is genuinely concerned for his health now, and into the future.

There was a story on 60 Minutes yesterday on the long lasting effects for some people who have "recovered" from COVID. Was very interesting.

Part 1: On two Aussie's under 50, post COVID infection.



Part 2: Only available on 9now. It was about actress Alyssa Milano's struggle post COVID infection. If you don't have access to 9now, you can read about her battle HERE.

This virus is obviously affecting different people, very differently. And that is a very scary thought.

[PhilT2]

Originally Posted by Romulus

Is there a refusal to acknowledge HCQ as a treatment like the Australian government has? Lets stick to Greece for the moment.

Again, did you actually read the article? Did you even just glance at it? Notice how in the top right hand corner it says opinion, not research? And note the date, April.
Here's a link to the opinion piece
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles...020.00176/full

I can't find any results for any properly run trials of hydroxychloroquine from the greek hospitals.

[Romulus]

Originally Posted by PhilT2

Again, did you actually read the article? Did you even just glance at it? Notice how in the top right hand corner it says opinion, not research? And note the date, April.
Here's a link to the opinion piece
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles...020.00176/full

I can't find any results for any properly run trials of hydroxychloroquine from the greek hospitals.

Yes, I did read the article. And am also aware that since April there has been a great deal more development regarding the use of HCQ, including the Lancet having to retract the data and analyses conducted by Surgisphere Corporation.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...324-6/fulltext

The science is never settled. It's the nut jobs saying HCQ doesn't work or shouldn't be considered as a treatment for Covid-19.

[PhilT2]

Craig Kelly's facebook page may not be the best source of scientific information.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?s...=en&as_sdt=0,5
Here's a link that leads to 18,000 scientific articles about hydroxychloroquine, the overall opinion seems to be that while it may do some good, it also has side effects that result in more harm than good. To dismiss the work of hundreds of researchers as "nut jobs" is not an indicator of good research skills.

[Polyal]

If it was a quick fix it would be proven and used, it is not. Not sure why it needs to be more complicated than that. To think that the world and "big pharma" would be holding back on sorting this out if it was that easy is the definition of crazy.

[russellw]

14 new cases for Australia and 2 deaths so the CMR rises to 3.162% while active cases rise to 1,998. NSW recorded 4 cases and Queensland recorded 1 with the balance in Victoria. The Victorian State 14 day moving average is now 38.64 with metro at 32.8 (45 unknown) and regional at 1.6 and no unknown cases. The Victorian case numbers were the lowest since 6th June but on the back of low testing numbers as well.

No new cases and no deaths for NZ so CMR is 1.377% and active cases fall to 62.

The UK had 4,368 new cases yesterday. We know they are now not counting their mortalities by the WHO guidelines so we are going to ignore those figures.

Just under 41k new cases in the USA yesterday and 294 deaths sees CMR drop to 2.912% and active cases remain at 36.5% with the raw numbers rising. Note that the USA is actually minus one day due to time differences.

Other notable points:
The USA passes 7M cases;
India completes 64M, Russia 43M, UK 22M and Spain 11M tests;

Greece (453), Tunisia (996), Netherlands (2,217) and Indonesia (4,176) all recorded new daily highs; those in blue for the second consecutive day and those in red for a third or more consecutive day.

[Tickford.]

UK is in serious trouble again aren't they?

Australia must be the one and only 'big' Western country that is doing ok. CCP must be hating us for it. They probably didn't expect Australia to lockdown as hard as we have.

And China is smiling from ear to ear looking at the USA and UK. It's almost like China knew which Western countries had the biggest population of morons. The Wu-Flu is doing exactly as China had planned in these parts of the world.



VIC update: 28 new cases and 3 further deaths in the past 24 hours to 11:00am.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by Tassie f100

Why do people get flu shots when they don’t have the flu????

WTF has that got to do with it?

The government has asked people to get tested "IF THEY SHOW SYMPTOMS".

They are not asking people to get tested just for the fun of it.

[Tassie f100]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

WTF has that got to do with it?

The government has asked people to get tested "IF THEY SHOW SYMPTOMS".

They are not asking people to get tested just for the fun of it.

Tsk tsk tsk

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by Tassie f100

Tsk tsk tsk

Yep. Your comment was that ridiculous it is worth a tsk, tsk, tsk.

The original comment was why are people not willing to be tested. And as I said, the government is only asking people to be tested if they show symptoms. Not just at random.

So again, what does that have to do with flu shots? Completely irrelevant.

[Romulus]

Originally Posted by PhilT2

Craig Kelly's facebook page may not be the best source of scientific information.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?s...=en&as_sdt=0,5
Here's a link that leads to 18,000 scientific articles about hydroxychloroquine, the overall opinion seems to be that while it may do some good, it also has side effects that result in more harm than good. To dismiss the work of hundreds of researchers as "nut jobs" is not an indicator of good research skills.

I just looked at your link. Third listed article;

https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...24857920300996

Conclusion
Despite its small sample size, our survey shows that hydroxychloroquine treatment is significantly associated with viral load reduction/disappearance in COVID-19 patients and its effect is reinforced by azithromycin.

I only clicked one link. There's probably another 17,000 odd thousand that associate HCQ and azithromycin with the treatment of Covid-19.

[Romulus]

Originally Posted by Tickford.

UK is in serious trouble again aren't they?

Australia must be the one and only 'big' Western country that is doing ok. CCP must be hating us for it. They probably didn't expect Australia to lockdown as hard as we have.

And China is smiling from ear to ear looking at the USA and UK. It's almost like China knew which Western countries had the biggest population of morons. The Wu-Flu is doing exactly as China had planned in these parts of the world.



VIC update: 28 new cases and 3 further deaths in the past 24 hours to 11:00am.

They did, look at the arsenal Andrews has prepared to roll out against the citizenry. Looks like he's preparing to wage war against the dissenters judging by the military spec equipment the Police have. The Omnibus bill in parliament was probably written by the CCP.

[Tassie f100]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

Yep. Your comment was that ridiculous it is worth a tsk, tsk, tsk.

The original comment was why are people not willing to be tested. And as I said, the government is only asking people to be tested if they show symptoms. Not just at random.

So again, what does that have to do with flu shots? Completely irrelevant.

Well if the Govt forced everyone to get tested they might get on top of the pandemic by finding the carriers before they get out and spread it everywhere.You just might be a carrier yourself but won’t know until you get symptoms.Same as people get flu shots before they get flu symptoms

[FairmontGS]

That's the problem with citing micro-studies - the sample sizes, presence (or lack of) of academic protocols, studies in relation to proper control groups, etc. If any of these are lacking then the study results are/and should be cancelled to ensure correct outcomes.

To that end, CMI (Clinical Microbiology and Infection is a monthly publication in English of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases and publishes peer-reviewed papers that present basic and applied research relevant to therapy and diagnostics in the fields of microbiology, infectious) conducted a meta-data analysis with the aim:

"The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to assess whether chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine with or without azithromycin decreased COVID-19 mortality compared with the standard of care."

This drew in sources from PubMed, Web of Science, Embase Cochrane Library, Google Scholar and MedRxiv were searched up to 25 July 2020.

The result of the meta-data study?

"Hydroxychloroquine alone was not associated with reduced mortality in hospitalized COVID-19 patients but the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin significantly increased mortality."

From a science-based view, that's probably the end of the HCQ discussion.

https://www.clinicalmicrobiologyandi...505-X/fulltext

Originally Posted by Tickford.

Thought I'd post a little update on this bloke. Just over 2 months now since he tested positive. I had a chat with him today at work. He told me his fitness has not improved, not even the slightest. He still cycles to work everyday, but is really feeling it. Out of breath and pulse rate up there after each ride. He has recently volunteered for medical research being undertaken for people who have overcome COVID, but have long lasting symptoms. As per my post above, this bloke is a fitness fanatic, and he is genuinely concerned for his health now, and into the future.

That's really sad, I hope he regains some ability and isn't one of those ending up with permanent heart damage.

Here's some more bad news this morning: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-...finds/12688384

[FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0]

I see the US has passed 200,000 deaths as a result of COVID-19.

The bleak milestone, by far the highest confirmed death toll from the virus in the world, was reported by Johns Hopkins on Tuesday local time (Wednesday AEST), based on figures supplied by state health authorities. But the real toll is thought to be much higher, in part because many COVID-19 deaths were probably ascribed to other causes, especially early on, before widespread testing.

Some pretty confronting statistics:

The number of dead in the US is equivalent to a 9/11 attack every day for 67 days. And it is still climbing.

Deaths are running at close to 770 a day on average

a widely cited model from the University of Washington predicts the overall US toll will double to 400,000 by the end of the year as schools and colleges reopen and cold weather sets in.

The figure reflects America's unenviable spot, which it has held for five months, as the world's leader by far in sheer numbers of confirmed infections and deaths. The US has less than 5 per cent of the globe's population but more than 20 per cent of the reported deaths.

Worldwide, the virus has infected more than 31 million people and is closing in fast on 1 million deaths, with more than 965,000 lives lost, by Johns Hopkins' count, though the real numbers are believed to be higher because of gaps in testing and reporting.

Anyone here that resides in the US able to give us an insight as to how the general population are feeling about this?

I look at the media coverage the Victorian situation received and just can't imagine what the media coverage must be like over in the US. And whilst I certainly don't go looking for it, it seems to me like that number of deaths is not getting the air time it deserves. Maybe just an incorrect impression?

Source https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-a...23-p55y7x.html

[Romulus]

Originally Posted by FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0

I see the US has passed 200,000 deaths as a result of COVID-19.



Some pretty confronting statistics:

Anyone here that resides in the US able to give us an insight as to how the general population are feeling about this?

I look at the media coverage the Victorian situation received and just can't imagine what the media coverage must be like over in the US. And whilst I certainly don't go looking for it, it seems to me like that number of deaths is not getting the air time it deserves. Maybe just an incorrect impression?

Source https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-a...23-p55y7x.html

To add some context, how many people die in the US everyday? In Australia it's around 450 deaths per day, so how much is Covid inflating these numbers?

Do we have numbers on the spikes in suicides since Covid?

[PhilT2]

Originally Posted by Romulus

Do we have numbers on the spikes in suicides since Covid?

No increase according to coroners court.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-...downs/12602060

[Romulus]

Originally Posted by PhilT2

No increase according to coroners court.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-...downs/12602060

Not 'out of the woods'

But mental health experts warn the lockdowns have seen an increase in self-harm and indicators that could ultimately result in suicide.

Government data released earlier this month showed the number of children ending up in the emergency room after self-harming has risen by a third.

Youth mental health service Orygen's head of suicide prevention research, associate professor Jo Robinson, said mental health practitioners had been "extremely concerned" there would be an increase in suicides.

"The fact that we haven't seen increases so far, it's really heartening. But I don't think we should let our guard down," she said.

Orygen's Jo Robinson says there has been an increase in people seeking help
"I don't think we're out of the woods yet'.

Not very reassuring.

[FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0]

Originally Posted by Romulus

To add some context, how many people die in the US everyday? In Australia it's around 450 deaths per day, so how much is Covid inflating these numbers?

Do we have numbers on the spikes in suicides since Covid?

And...once again you try and normalise something that is not normal.

[Romulus]

Originally Posted by FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0

And...once again you try and normalise something that is not normal.

Wrong, once again......how many flu fatalities last year? The rate of either causes of death (flu or Covid) is insignificant to the total number of deaths that occur everyday. Which is not to take away from each death which is sad.

Where's the focus on the impact of suicides which take a lot more lives than this virus.

[Charliewool]

Quote:
“The number of dead in the US is equivalent to a 9/11 attack every day for 67 days. And it is still climbing.”

That quote to me, is where the bloody world is at now with media sensationalist hype!
67 times 9/11?.... Really, is there any need for such an obscure comparison?
Feckin pathetic

[Citroënbender]

I’m starting to have deep misgivings about the timing of reduced financial support to those presently receiving it.

Surely as restrictions taper off, you would see how people are responding, how work abilities and opportunities show themselves, then make a call on any reduction? I’m concerned it will beget financial stresses which force people into situations that compromise the guidelines for safe operations, generally.

[PhilT2]

Originally Posted by Romulus

[I]Not 'out of the woods'

Normally an increase in unemployment would see an increase in suicide. This is usually so predictable that the experts can predict how many deaths for each percentage point increase in unemployment. However nothing about the current situation in predictable.

I originally thought that the increase in welfare payments may be responsible, that the decrease in the financial stress usually caused by job loss may be the significant factor. There are some reports from the US that the increase in suicide has not happened there either. But their figures are distorted by the fact that their suicide rate has been increasing over recent years while unemployment has been decreasing.

It's always risky to attribute change to only one factor and I expect it will be years before we fully understand all the consequences of this epidemic.

[PhilT2]

Originally Posted by Romulus

Where's the focus on the impact of suicides which take a lot more lives than this virus.

We know from past experience that publicity about suicide leads to an increase in those events. So attempts to reduce the rate have to be subtle. We had R U OK day a couple of weeks ago, that was quite heavily promoted in the construction industry again this year. There has been significant increase in expenditure on mental health like making a number of free visits to a psychologist available on Medicare.

So the focus is there if you look for it.

[Tickford.]

Originally Posted by Charliewool

Quote:
“The number of dead in the US is equivalent to a 9/11 attack every day for 67 days. And it is still climbing.”

That quote to me, is where the bloody world is at now with media sensationalist hype!
67 times 9/11?.... Really, is there any need for such an obscure comparison?
Feckin pathetic

True.
But, it does make you think of the response (or excuse) post the 9/11 attacks. In comparison, we have a situation in the US (and around the world for that matter) that is far worse, but China has escaped any sort of a similar response??!